


Tiptoe As You Pass

by SuperBlondie



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Dark Fairy Tale Elements, Dark Fantasy, Emotional Manipulation, Fae & Fairies, Fantasy, M/M, Manipulation, Supernatural - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-08-28 05:20:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16717247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuperBlondie/pseuds/SuperBlondie
Summary: And if you see a fairy ring, tiptoe as you passYixing didn't. He didn't listen, ignored the warnings he was given as a child about fairy rings and their dangers. Instead, he sees the pretty ring of glowing white mushrooms and steps through. And watches as the world he knows bleeds away.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everyone! I'm not sure how much reception this will get because it seemed like most people weren't very interested in this fic hahaha, but I love it and I'm very excited to share it!! This fic is for the [Mood Board Bingo](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/MoodBoardBingo/profile) which is also on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/moodboardbingo)! It is the product of my good friend [Kayla](https://twitter.com/sugaquillz) who you should all go follow and thank for putting so much hard work into making all these mood boards!!
> 
> Anyway, this fic was written for [moodboard 11](https://twitter.com/killmeDO/status/1152960417876140032?s=20) of the bingo and it will have a second chapter (which is almost done :D)
> 
> As always, thank you [Aarushi](https://twitter.com/AarushiC_18) for betaing this and also torturing me with stephanie meyer comparisons slkdjfsfjlk

“Just for the night,” Baekhyun says as he leads him away from the village, “it’s perfectly safe!” Yixing looks back at the cottages slowly fading from view and then forward to the trees clustered together that mark the beginning of the forest. The forest is supposedly so big that it would take a man three days to walk from one end to the other – if they don’t get lost.

Baekhyun is determined to sweet talk Yixing into spending the night in there. He says it’s a dare, one of the highest importance, so high that Yixing will never be able to recover his dignity if he backs out. Yixing thinks that’s ridiculous because there’s very little dignity to be lost in a dare between best friends. He won’t say that though; he doesn’t want to ruin Baekhyun’s fun. He doesn’t understand what fun Baekhyun could possibly have from making his best friend spend the night in the cold, dark forest, but the sparkle in Baekhyun’s eyes has returned after weeks of absence. If spending the night in the forest makes Baekhyun happy, Yixing will do it.

Even if he doesn’t want to.

Officially, there is nothing dangerous about the forest. It’s only inhabitants are trees, deer, rabbits, birds, and the other woodland creatures Yixing reads about in the few books he’s managed to collect over his life. Nothing particularly dangerous about any of them. But Yixing has heard the stories, he’s heard the rumors of people who went into the forest and never came back out. The elders say they were leaving to make a life for themselves outside of the isolated village, that they walked the three days through the forest to the other side and found that life out there fit them better.

Yixing doesn’t think his parents were leaving him behind for a better life when they went into the forest. They had told him they were going out to see if he had dropped the little cloth sheep his grandmother had made him near the trees. Yixing still wonders what would have happened if he hadn’t lost that sheep.

Officially, the forest isn’t dangerous. Truthfully, Yixing thinks the forest is more dangerous than anything in the world. Everyone in the village says that Yixing’s parents just disappeared one night, that they were awful parents and Yixing is to be pitied for being born of such dishonorable people. No one knows the truth, no one cared to listen when Yixing was six and telling everyone that his parents had gone to the forest and _promised_ to come back.

Baekhyun doesn’t know about Yixing’s parents and the forest. Yixing never found the courage to tell him, likely never will. So, he agrees to spend the night in the forest because it will make Baekhyun happy. He agrees because he knows Baekhyun will spend a night in the forest if he doesn’t. He agrees because he would rather the forest take him than Baekhyun.

Baekhyun leaves him at the edge of the forest, right at the tree line. Yixing waves to him as he walks in, slow, careful steps. "I won't make fun of you if you can't do it," Baekhyun calls. "If it gets too scary you can always come home!" Baekhyun's voice is light and playful, but it takes the weight off Yixing's shoulders. Yixing has no plan of staying the entire night.

Baekhyun quickly disappears behind the trees. It seems like that to Yixing at least, bushes and branches quickly separate him from his best friend. He knows Baekhyun is still waiting there on the other side. Baekhyun feels worlds away though, not at all like Yixing could take a few running steps back the way he came and find him again.

It's so different beyond the trees. It's a quiet world, one of isolation and careful, tentative calm. He feels all alone in the forest. Only the sounds of grass and leaves rustling and crunching under his feet, of birds high above him in the trees and far below him in the underbrush keep him company. The moon keeps him company too, her and her stars.

It doesn't feel dangerous. He knows people have gone this far in the forest and come out alive because of little games he and the other children played. They would run into the forest with rope tied around their waists so the other kids could pull them out.

This was the farthest Yixing ever went. The cloudberry bush is exactly as remembers. The cloudberry bush doesn't look dangerous, but no one ever went past it.

Yixing takes a few steps past the bush and waits for the forest to swallow him up whole. He waits for a creature from his worst nightmares to appear out of the shadows and tear him to pieces.

Nothing happens.

He waits and waits, but nothing happens. It's still just Yixing alone in the forest. He sighs quietly, laughing off some of the nervous energy, and keeps walking. He doesn't know why he keeps walking. Baekhyun never said how far he had to go into the forest, only that he had to stay the night. He could turn around and settle behind one of the trees right at the edge and wait out the night. But he feels bold now with the cloudberry bush behind him.

Yixing walks until the cloudberry bush is just at the edge of his sight. He makes sure it stays where he can see it; without it, he has no marker of which way home is. The elders said people who are lost tend to get even more lost trying to find their way out. Maybe that's how people get lost in the forest; maybe Yixing's parents lost sight of the cloudberry bush and never found their way back home.

Somewhere in Yixing's heart he knows that's not true. It's easier to stomach than the idea of a monster or the forest deliberately twisting itself to lock his parents inside. _Much_ easier to stomach than the image of his parents walking through the forest and coming out on the other side with no care for what will happen to their son.

Yixing jumps when something brushes against his foot. He looks down to see a white mushroom, pristine and almost glowing in the dark of the forest. Next to that mushroom is another, and another, and another, more and more mushrooms all settled together in a ring.

"A fairy ring," Yixing laughs to himself and brushes the mushrooms closest with a toe.

There were stories about fairy rings when he was younger, about the danger and the ire of provoked fae. Seokjin found one out in a meadow once. Every child took a turn stepping inside and laughing when nothing happened. Yixing remembers thinking that fairy ring looked like it was missing a few mushrooms from the edge. But the fairy ring disappeared over that winter and never grew again. It was just a story, just something to keep the children from ripping up the mushrooms.

Yixing steps into the fairy ring with a smile.

And the world changes before his eyes.

The clearing changes, shadows between the trees darkening into utter blackness. Everything darkens. The air, the bits of sky Yixing can see through the branches of the trees, the trees themselves. Yixing looks around himself and finds that he can barely turn his head. The world slows down and slows him down with it. It's like being in a dream, the world just short of real. The colors turn more intense, harsher, more vibrant, even as they darken.

Yixing thinks he might be dreaming. He imagines himself curled up at the base of a tree and twitching as he dreams of fairy rings and worlds so much like his own.

Then he starts to hear them. He hears the creatures of the forest come to life. His ears pop and sounds rush in, the rustle of grass, crackle of leaves, calls of the forest animals as they go about their lives. But they don't sound like the animals he knows. The sounds are similar, almost the braying of a deer or chittering of a rabbit, but they're distorted, warped, just off the edge of right. There's a rumbling that shakes Yixing to his bones and he slowly, so slowly, turns to watch as a shadow so large he doesn't think it can possibly be real passes among the trees.

Yixing's heart hammers in his chest. He wants to go home. Danger is imminent, every part of him screaming that this is not the world where he belongs. He belongs somewhere toned down, where the animals sound as they should and nothing as large as a house can live in the forest.

A rabbit hops out into the clearing and Yixing gasps. The air gets caught in his chest and he jerks as he tries to cough it back out. The rabbit seems like a normal rabbit, a pretty cream-colored rabbit the size of the ones Yixing has seen all his life. It has the long, floppy ears, the puffy tail. But it has antlers growing from the top of its head, like a deer.

He steps out of the fairy ring just as it hops towards him. It looks so strange and the points on its antlers are so sharp, but it seems so gentle and friendly. It looks almost like it could belong to Yixing's world. It looks safe.

The rabbit leaps out of the clearing, jumping from one side to the other in a single bound. No rabbit from Yixing's world could do that. Yixing watches it go and his heart sinks in his chest. He's alone again, trapped in this world with no way to get home. Even as he tries to tell himself it's a dream he knows it's not. He knows he's really in another place, another time, another world where nothing is as it should be.

Yixing freezes. As the rabbit disappears, a man melts from the shadows. He doesn't appear, he _melts_ from the shadows as though he was a part of them.

And then the man smiles a handsome, fiendish, playful smile. It looks feline on his face, like one of the cats that live near the grain cottage when it catches a mouse. Victorious, playful, cruel, like Yixing has fallen into his clutches. Maybe Yixing has.

On top of his head are antlers so large Yixing doesn't understand how he keeps his head up. They're beautiful in a darkly fantastical way, curved into works of art and so sharp Yixing can already feel the sting. White with eruptions of black smattered along the lengths. Yixing knows he's seen the pattern somewhere but can't remember.

He meets the man's eyes and the man smiles wider. He winks. Yixing's heart beats so quickly he thinks it might give out from the stress. No one should able to smile that wide. "Zhang Yixing," the man coos and his voice sounds like a song, entrancing and gentle like a siren luring in a sailor, "you've been here for quite some time. You might want to return home before you forget how to."

Fear unsticks Yixing's feet from the ground and he stumbles back into the fairy ring. The moment the heel of his second foot passes back into the ring, the world dulls and lightens. The man disappears, blowing away like smoke and shadow, and Yixing's momentum carries him backwards until he falls flat on his back.

Yixing is left alone, staring up at the morning sky and sunlight streaming in through the trees, and he cries.

* * *

 

Yixing doesn’t go back to the forest right away. He walks out that morning, wiping viciously at the tears falling down his cheeks, and tells Baekhyun that he’s never going back there again. Baekhyun is waiting for him at the edge of the forest and apologizes over and over, says Yixing should’ve just come home if he was that scared.

He doesn’t believe Yixing about the fairy ring or the man with antlers. He doesn’t believe that Yixing could have lost so much time.

“I won’t make fun of you. You can admit that you got lost,” Baekhyun says as they walk back to the village. Baekhyun winces when Yixing lets out a wet, hollow laugh. He wishes he’d just gotten lost. “It’s a big forest, Yixing. Don’t be embarrassed.”

Yixing wishes it was embarrassment clawing at his chest and not fear. He wishes it more than Baekhyun could ever know. Yixing feels as though he is carrying a secret, knowledge he was never supposed to know. It’s as though he peeked through a door into a world not meant for his eyes, and what he saw is following after him. “I didn’t get _lost_. I’m telling you, I stepped into a fairy ring and it took me to another world. It was like if someone had taken the forest and twisted it just a little. And there was a man with deer antlers and he knew my name!”

Baekhyun still doesn’t believe him. He doesn’t say it outright, but Yixing can see it in the awkward lines of his smile. Baekhyun doesn’t tell him he’s wrong, but it’s painfully obvious that he thinks Yixing is making it all up.

So Yixing lets the issue fade away.

They go back to their little house on the outskirts of the village and pretend like the dare went just as Baekhyun planned. They laugh about it and let life go on as normal. Life does go on for Baekhyun, but not for Yixing.

The forest follows him. It plagues his thoughts, mind consumed with the fairy ring and all the things beyond it. He plays the sounds he heard over and over in his mind, picking out the strange warbles and dips that didn’t quite match up with the birds he hears every morning. The forest was similar, so similar that he might have not realized it wasn’t his world if he hadn’t watched it change before his eyes. He had though. He saw the colors turn vibrant and darken and watched the shadow of the creature nearly as big as the trees wander past him. And they don’t leave him. Those images, those sounds, the strange feeling of being somewhere he does not belong, they stick to him like burrs and refuse to let go. Baekhyun asks Yixing where his mind goes; it’s always, _always_ that damned forest.

He sees a rabbit hopping out in a field one day. Its shadow has antlers until he blinks, and then it’s nothing more than a simple rabbit hopping out in the field. He has started covering his windows with linens at night because he sees the shadow of more antlers on his floor. It’s as though someone is standing just outside his window and letting the moonlight cast their shadow along the floor. But there’s never anyone outside his window, just the antlers.

The man knew his name too. He had called Yixing by his full name with confidence, as though he knew there was no possible way Yixing could have been anyone else. Yixing can’t even imagine how the man learned his name. He isn’t anyone special, no one that people would talk about for miles around. When he was young, there was some talk about him going to the palace to live as a dancer, but when the dancing stopped, so did the talk. So Yixing cannot understand how the man knew his name.

Still, nothing bothers him quite so much as the dreams. He sees the man in his dreams. It’s never more than a flash of a smile, a puff of breath against his ear as someone whispers his name. Once, he dreams of cold hands sliding down his arms and taking hold of his own and pressing them up by his head. He wakes up in a cold sweat and lights every candle in the room to keep him company until the sun comes up.

Weeks pass and Yixing starts to forget about the forest and the fairy ring and the man with antlers. The dreams stop happening quite so often. He begins to relax and settle back into life without the knowledge of the world beyond the fairy ring weighing him down. And then he sees the man in the market.

The man has no antlers this time. He looks like nothing more than a particularly handsome man, but Yixing knows better. He sees the man through a gap in the crowd. It’s only for a split-second. The crowd parts and reforms before Yixing can even process what he saw. But it’s the man from the forest. He has the same feline smile, so confident and proud of himself. Yixing doesn’t bother asking Baekhyun if he saw the man too. The man has been following him for weeks; he’d have to be able to choose who sees him for Baekhyun to not have noticed him yet.

“I’m going out to the forest,” Yixing tells Baekhyun that night. Baekhyun looks up from a letter he’d been reading in surprise. The letter gets pulled close into Baekhyun’s chest where Yixing can’t see. Yixing blinks – he and Baekhyun don’t hide things from each other, never have. But Yixing leaves it be. If Yixing is allowed to have secrets, Baekhyun is too. “If I’m not back by morning, come looking for me.”

Baekhyun laughs. “Alright, though I don’t know why you wouldn’t be back by morning. Are you going to get yourself lost again?”

“I hope not,” Yixing shrugs, “But you can never be too careful.” Not when he’s being followed by creatures from another world. He starts out the door, leaving Baekhyun to his letter. He looks back once and sees Baekhyun furiously scribbling out a response to whoever wrote him. Yixing sighs. It seems they both have secret business to attend to that night, he only hopes Baekhyun’s is much more mundane than his.

The fairy ring is waiting for him when he returns to the forest. It’s just as Yixing left it, pretty and white and so unassuming. He would never have guessed the secrets it held if he hadn’t seen them for himself. He lifts a foot to take a step and then pauses. Uncertainty lingers in the back of his mind. Does he truly wish to go back to that other world?

He was prey there, tiny in comparison to some of the things that walked among the trees. The only other person he saw was as strange as the world itself. Yixing is very sure that people, the people of his world, aren’t meant for that kind of strange. But the strange has started to follow him into his world, and that isn’t something he can leave unattended. Yixing can still feel the hands running down his arms. The shadows of the tree branches look like antlers. It’s only been a few weeks, but the sight of the man today in the market has him at the end of his rope. There’s only so much discomfort and strange one can take before they snap.

So Yixing takes a deep breath and steps into the fairy ring. The world changes again, darkening and turning more intense. The sounds of the forest twist and reshape themselves into warped versions of what they should be. It doesn’t unsettle Yixing so much as it did the first time, nor does he feel so slowed down.

When he goes to take a step back out of the ring, his leg does exactly as he tells it. He doesn’t wait to take a step either. He puffs up his chest in false confidence and pretends he isn’t scared. “I know you’ve been watching me,” Yixing calls out in a voice that shakes. He feels his face color. It doesn’t seem to matter how brave he pretends to be, the fear runs deeper than any mask he attempts to wear. Prey know when they’re being hunted; it does them no good to pretend anything different.

A figure melts out of the shadows again. Yixing watches as the shadows unwind themselves from around the man’s wrists and legs, how they seem to adjust his clothes as he steps out into the clearing. One tendril clings to his antlers for a few seconds longer than the rest as if to show Yixing that he isn’t imagining it. Yixing swallows and feels a ball of fear start to build uncomfortably in his gut.

The man is smiling again. It’s a bit brighter this time; it seems almost genuine, but it never loses the playfulness or that unsettling sense of victory. “Zhang Yixing, come to see me again? I’m honored.”

A shiver runs down Yixing’s spine. The man purrs when he speaks, words coming out heavy as they float across the clearing to wrap around Yixing. He doesn’t know what to say, heart beating out a staccato rhythm in his chest. Any false confidence he had is gone now, cracked to pieces by the way the man says his name. He’s so familiar with it, like he’s used to rolling the syllables off his tongue.

The man beckons him forward with one hand. His eyes narrow into slits like a particularly happy cat. Yixing’s feet almost move before he roots himself in place. “Why are you watching me?” Yixing takes a breath, “I saw you at the market, I know you’ve been following me.”

The man’s smile briefly drops into a frown and then he’s moving closer. The grass parts silently under his feet as he walks forward and stops a few paces away from Yixing. “How is Baekhyun handling being chosen as the prince’s consort? That seems much more interesting a topic than my checking up on you.”

Yixing blinks. “What?” The man smiles again and his head tilts to the side. His antlers have vines hanging off them now, dark green things with pretty blue flowers that Yixing can’t help but watch as they sway and shift with the tilt of the man’s head. It’s distracting. Yixing shakes his head. The vines aren’t important now. He needs to know why the man is watching him, following him.

But what he said about Baekhyun doesn’t make any sense, and it’s always so much harder to ignore things that don’t make sense. If Baekhyun was engaged, he would tell Yixing. Yixing is his best friend, he’d never keep something like that from him. “Baekhyun isn’t engaged to the prince,” Yixing says, “you’re wrong. Probably trying to trick me or distract me or something. J-just answer my question. Please.”

The man sighs. “I appreciate your use of manners, but I am never wrong. That is something you should take to heart – I am _never_ wrong. I know _everything._ ”

There’s a moment where Yixing doesn’t know what to say and the man says nothing at all. No one can possibly know _everything_. Yixing doesn’t say that. Even if the man is lying, he has antlers with edges that glint in the low light, sharp enough to spear right through Yixing. So he says nothing at all and tries not to let the fear slowly clawing up his spine take hold of him.

“Don’t believe me? I know about your parents, Zhang Yixing. I know what they went out looking for your little toy and never came back home. I know about your ankle and the accident you never told anyone about. Do you miss dancing? You were a lovely dancer before the accident, such a shame.”

Yixing’s face colors in embarrassment and shame. No one in the world knows about the accident. He’d been too confident about a turn while practicing by himself one day. Something in his ankle had given out and never recovered the way it should have. Everyone asked why he stopped dancing, and it was easier to say that it didn’t make him happy any more than to say that his one true passion had been ripped away by his own carelessness. Yixing can’t stand even the _idea_ of being pitied.

When he looks up at the man, he’s smiling again, amusement dancing in his eyes. Yixing frowns and wonders if it would be better to step back into the fairy ring and never come back. The man will get bored of haunting him eventually, won’t he? And then Yixing won’t be facing this fiendish creature that seems to take joy in poking at his weak spots.

But the man mentioned his parents. “What happened to my parents? And how do you know so much? I never…never told anyone about those things.”

“Your parents? I’d be happy to tell you if you’d come a little closer. It’s not something I’d like to shout, you know.”

Something in Yixing’s chest tells him it’s a bad idea even as he’s leaning forward. He’s not thinking things through. Baekhyun always said that lack of foresight would be his doom. Still, the man says he knows what happened to Yixing’s parents, and hasn’t he always wanted to know what happened? He knows better. Even with his inability to think first, he knows not to trust a creature that promises him the world. But when a creature promises him all he’s ever wanted, how is supposed to refuse?

Yixing’s foot brushes against something just as he’s taking a step forward. He pauses and looks down to see a white mushroom. The fairy ring. He’s been in this world for much, much longer than the last time. Days could’ve passed. He needs to go home. Yixing stumbles backwards into the ring.

He watches the man’s face for a sign of anger, that he’s a dangerous creature who Yixing cannot trust. The man simply winks at him. “I’ll see you soon, Zhang Yixing. Don’t keep me waiting.”

* * *

 

“How long have you been engaged to the prince?” Baekhyun startles from his chair next to the fire, eyes wide. Yixing’s heart sinks. He’d hoped the man in the forest was a liar trying to trick him into doubting his best friend. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Baekhyun look so guilty though. “He was right,” Yixing whispers and looks to the floor for guidance, or just to hide the way tears well up in his eyes.

Yixing understands why people need to keep secrets sometimes. He can’t fault Baekhyun for keeping secrets when he has so many of his own, but his secrets never hurt them. Yixing has never kept a secret that would end up driving them apart. “How long do you have before you go to live in the palace?” Yixing wonders how long he has left before his best friend leaves him alone in the village, traveling across the kingdom where Yixing will never see him again.

 Baekhyun stands up. Yixing looks up to see him twists his hands together, eyes darting nervously around the room. The firelight is barely enough to light the room. It leaves them in shadows and Yixing’s heart darkens along with the room.

“I still have time, Yixing,” Baekhyun starts. Yixing laughs and he feels so empty. _Time._ Time doesn’t matter now. Years would still not be enough time, not when the end means that they’ll be separated for the rest of their lives. “I was going to tell you eventually, when I found the words. I just – no one was supposed to know yet. The palace wants to keep the news quiet until I’ve settled and gotten more comfortable with my role as c-consort. But I was going to tell you when it was allowed.”

Yixing thinks that maybe he can accept that. Going against the palace just isn’t something that happens, not if you like living. If Baekhyun was sworn to secrecy by the palace – Yixing can accept that. It hurts, but he can accept that. If the palace entrusted him with a secret, he’d protect it with his life, because that’s what would be at stake.

Baekhyun sits back down, guilt hovering over him like a cloud. Yixing feels guilt start to build in his own chest. He doesn’t have anything to be guilty for, but he feels it all the same. Guilt for making Baekhyun feel bad about something out of his control, perhaps? He doesn’t know. All he knows is that he can see the exact moment Baekhyun realizes that Yixing knowing means someone else must have told him. _Someone else_ knows. “How did you find out?” Baekhyun appears in Yixing’s space, eyes wide in panic and hands gripping tight to his shoulders. Baekhyun shakes him and his fingers dig in a little too hard. “Who told you, Yixing?”

“The man in the forest,” he says, “the one from the fairy ring?” Baekhyun groans and Yixing feels his face color. “He’s real! The whole world is real, Baekhyun! I went back tonight and saw it and he knew about your engagement and –” Yixing cuts himself off. His own secrets are balanced on the tip of his tongue, ready to fall out, but he swallows them back down. “Just trust me, he’s real. I’m not crazy.”

“Take me to him.”

“What?”

Yixing tries to avoid Baekhyun’s gaze, but his best friend grabs him by the face and forces the eye contact. “Take me to the man in the forest. I need to make sure he hasn’t told anyone else about the engagement. We need to go. _Now_.”

_I’ll see you soon, Zhang Yixing._

 He forces the memory away as he leads Baekhyun into the forest. His feet drag along the ground with his own desire to turn around and return home. The man had been so sure he’d see Yixing again, that damned smile perfectly in place. How could he have been so sure that Yixing would return? Why was he right? The moonlight that manages to filter its way through the trees casts shadows like claws along the ground. Yixing quickens his pace; they look like they might grab him if he doesn’t stop hesitating and move.

“He’s in there,” Yixing says. He stops at the edge of the fairy ring, careful to keep his body out. He doesn’t want to go back. He’ll stay here to make sure Baekhyun returns, but he doesn’t want to see the world on the other side again. “You just have to step in. I think he waits for you to step out once you’re on the other side.”

Baekhyun raises his eyebrows. Yixing knows he still doesn’t believe. He thinks Yixing is _crazy_ , like the kids of the village used to whisper about his grandmother. He isn’t. He knows what he saw. He knows Baekhyun will see too.

“You promise, Xing?” Yixing nods, heart quickening its pace in his chest as Baekhyun sighs and steps forward.

The world slows as Baekhyun lifts one foot, plants it in the dirt inside the ring, then lifts the other foot. Yixing watches with fear so thick in his throat he can barely breathe. The wind picks up and rustles the fabric of Yixing’s shirt, cold air forcing the hair all over his body to stand on end. It’s a warning. He shouldn’t have let Baekhyun go into the fairy ring. He wonders why he needed Baekhyun’s belief so badly that he would send his best friend into the world on the other side of the ring. His mouth opens to tell Baekhyun to stop. The wind blows so hard leaves lift off the ground and swirl together.

They swirl up and up, forming shapes and holding formations. Yixing swears he sees the figure of a man with antlers like the buck of a hunter’s wildest dream reach out to him, the leaves making up his fingers blowing back against the wind to Yixing.

Baekhyun’s other foot lands inside the fairy ring.

The wind stops. The leaves fall back down. Baekhyun is still here, staring at Yixing with a growing frown. The forest is just as it was before, no more dark, no more intense. The animal calls he hears are just the same as they should be. Baekhyun is still here. Yixing doesn’t understand.

“Yixing, you promised,” Baekhyun’s voice turns harsh and betrayed. He’s so angry and Yixing doesn’t understand. “There’s nothing in the fairy ring! There has never been! I need you to tell me who told you about the prince. And I need the _truth_ this time.”

“I am telling the truth!” Yixing doesn’t know how to make Baekhyun believe him. He isn’t quite sure if he believes himself anymore. “I saw it. I swear I saw it. I’m not crazy.” Baekhyun shakes his head, corners of his mouth pulling further and further down. Words fail as Yixing looks between the fairy ring and Baekhyun. He _knows_ there is something on the other side of the fairy ring. He saw it – _twice._ “I’ll show you.”

Baekhyun yelps out a half of a word as Yixing grabs him by the arm and pulls him out of the ring of pretty, white mushrooms. They mock him, glowing in the darkness and acting like a beacon to draw him in. Yixing is helpless to do anything but heed their call.

He steps into the fairy ring. His world melts into the world on the other side.

“Zhang Yixing.”

Yixing looks up and sees the man standing there, pretty flowers still hanging from his antlers. It’s just as it was before. He looks and Baekhyun is nowhere to be found. That somehow makes him feel better, that this world is wholly different from his own that no one can follow him through. That the world is _real._ “I’m not crazy,” Yixing whispers. It feels almost as though he’s asking the man. He would know; he claims to know everything.

The man shakes his head. “No, you’re not.” He smiles. “My world is just as real as yours, maybe even more so.”

“And who _are_ you?” Yixing wants to bite his tongue the moment he speaks. The air here is so still, so quiet. Not even the warped versions of the animal calls Yixing knows float to him through the trees. It’s only him and the man, and there’s nothing safe about that.

The man only smiles wider. He doesn’t bow, doesn’t pretend to be any sort of gentleman. He strides across the clearing until he’s so close Yixing would only have to reach out an arm to touch him. He almost does; he almost wants to feel the fabric of the man’s shirt under his fingers and know if this world is as real as it seems.

“You can call me Jongdae. Go ahead, say it.”

“Jongdae.”

“Lovely, Zhang Yixing.”

All at once, a gentle wind blows and the forest fills with the quiet chatter of animals roaming around in the night. The stillness is broken and it’s just Yixing and Jongdae in the clearing, no more safe than before and yet Yixing feels far more settled. He doesn’t know why he repeated Jongdae’s name when asked. He isn’t sure if he wants to know. Names are powerful things.

Yixing watches Jongdae, watches how the wind blows but the flowers and vines on Jongdae’s antlers stay settled. Names are powerful, but he thinks Jongdae might be stronger than his name. “Why couldn’t Baekhyun come through the fairy ring? Why only me?”

“You believe.” The words hang in the air between them and Yixing doesn’t understand. Belief shouldn’t have anything to do with the fairy ring. He didn’t believe that there would be a world on the other side of the fairy ring when he first stepped through. He hadn’t thought that there would be anything there at all. He believes now, believes that the blades of grass tickling his ankles and pressing against the soles of his feet are just as real as the ones back in his world.

Yixing waits for Jongdae to say something. He waits for an explanation. Jongdae just smiles at him instead. Jongdae smiles and they both know Jongdae isn’t going to say anything more; Yixing can’t make him explain either.

“Do you actually know everything,” Yixing asks. Jongdae nods, smile growing so wide that his eyes crinkle. The wind starts to blow the flowers in his antlers. It’s all so strange. Yixing feels one corner of his own mouth twitch up into a semblance of a smile. “How do you know everything?”

“As I said before, I’d be happy to show you. Just come with me.”

Yixing’s feet start to move and he forces himself still. It reminds him of the stories of sirens, beautiful creatures luring sailors into the sea to drown them and eat them whole. He would much prefer to not end up eaten. He has already been lured into another world, but his body is still whole and unharmed and he would like to keep it that way.

And yet, he wants to know how Jongdae knows everything so badly. If he knows everything, he knows how this world works, the truth about why it allowed Yixing in and kept Baekhyun out. He knows what happened to Yixing’s parents. The temptation is nearly too much to resist – too good to be true and yet appearing so true that how could anyone ever expect him to not give in? Yixing thinks that the magic of this world has started to affect him. He has spent less than an hour surrounded by the mystery and yet he thinks it has already started to change him.

“I want you to promise that I will be safe. No harm will come to me if I go with you.” Jongdae nods, eyebrow arching as if to tell Yixing that _of course_ he would be safe; Jongdae would never let him get hurt. Yixing doesn’t know how he feels about that. “And I want you to promise that I will be free to return home whenever I wish, no punishments, no danger.”

Jongdae bows. Something draws Yixing’s eyes up. His mouth drops open as lightning so white it’s blue streaks across the sky. “You have my word, Zhang Yixing, that no harm will ever come to you while you are in my care and that I will never even _attempt_ to stop you from returning home. On my honor, I _swear_.” Lightning flashes again.

Yixing looks down to see Jongdae straightening out. He holds out a hand and the flowers in his antlers glow that same white-blue as the lightning. Yixing steps out of the fairy ring and slowly take Jongdae’s hand. “Alright,” he says, “I’m ready to go.”

Lights float up out of the grass. They do nothing more than float, just pinpricks of light that brighten the clearing. He hadn’t even realized how dark it had become.

“Keep hold of my hand. Many of the creatures are used to you, but not all. The more powerful ones always need a bit more time to adjust, you know. And these little lights were so nervous you would never come out to say hello.” Jongdae reaches out a hand and one light floats delicately into his palm. “They’re happy to meet you properly though. They’ll likely come visit you now, if you decide to return home.”

“They can speak,” Yixing asks. He holds out a shaky hand and gasps as another light floats to him. It feels fuzzy in his palm, warm too, like he’s holding a particularly small kitten. “Oh my goodness.”

Jongdae laughs, pretty and clear. “Yes, they speak, though it may take you a good deal of time to understand them.” If Yixing brings the light close to his ear and concentrates, he can hear quiet whispering. It’s nothing like speech; it’s the babbling of a river, completely unintelligible. “Give it time,” Jongdae says, “they _want_ you to understand them, Zhang Yixing.”

The lights float away after that, returning to the grass and leaving Jongdae and Yixing alone. “Come,” Jongdae pulls him forward to the edge of the clearing, “I have so much more to show you.”

The forest is strange here, the trees darker than the night sky in Yixing’s world. Eyes watch him from between the trees. They glow so brightly that he has to look away. He thinks he would look away regardless to try and shake that feeling of being watched. They walk in silence, only the grass rustling under their feet breaking the quiet air. Yixing doesn’t know how far they walk, but eventually a rabbit with antlers hops across their path. It chitters at them, and then hops back into the darkness between the trees.

More than once, a shadow larger than a bear will move far up the path. Jongdae forces Yixing to stop each time and he waves a hand. The shadowy creature roars in displeasure only once. The sound is so loud, so booming and overpowering, that the ground shakes beneath Yixing’s feet. Jongdae doesn’t flinch. He simply waves his hand again and it moves. Yixing stares in wonder. No man he knows would face a creature of that size with so little fear; he wonders if Jongdae is a man at all.

At the end of their journey, Jongdae guides him between two trees that tower over the rest, so large Yixing can’t see the underside of the canopy. The darkness is thicker here. The black is heavier and Yixing feels as though he’s walking into an end. Perhaps he is walking into the end of himself.

The darkness lightens as they step further and further into the darkness, Jongdae’s palm cool and unignorable against his own. He begins to the see the shape of the trees that they pass, sees shadows as they peer at him from their hiding places. Almost at once, the darkness brightens into a clearing and Yixing has the strangest feeling that he melted out of the shadows. He thinks that maybe he would seem just as strange as Jongdae to anyone who had been watching them. He doesn’t know what to make of that.

He doesn’t know what to make of the clearing either.

In the clearing is a skeleton. It’s a skeleton larger than any Yixing has ever seen. Yixing stares up at the creature’s spine and can’t even imagine how many of him stacked on top of each other would be needed just to brush the bones with his fingertips. It looks almost peaceful, massive head resting on the ground.

It takes Yixing longer than it should to realize that it’s the skeleton of a deer. The horns are magnificent, and when Yixing looks, he can see the same crooks and bends in Jongdae’s antlers.

“Is this your mother?” Jongdae nods. “Oh. Why did you bring me here?” Yixing swallows down his nerves as best he can as Jongdae lets go of his hand and crosses the clearing. He steps in close to the skeleton. Yixing almost expects it to come to life and move. Anything is possible in this world – it seems so, at least.

“My mother made sure I knew everything before she died,” Jongdae says. He leans in and presses his forehead to the skull of the deer and the world seems to hum. Yixing feels like an outsider, the only thing not following along with the harmony. “Come, Zhang Yixing. She would like to show you everything too. Your parents, anything you want to know. You can join the harmony; I bet you have a lovely voice.”

Yixing backs away, ice running in place of blood. The harmony becomes louder, more discordant, as it seems to understand that he isn’t going to give in. Yixing will _not_ touch that deer. It’s beautiful, but beauty is a deadly thing to be swayed by.

He picks at the hem of his shirt and tries not to cry as the hum threatens to overtake him and Jongdae’s eyes begin to glow. “I want to go home, Jongdae,” Yixing forces out. “You promised I could go home whenever I wanted, and I want to go home now…please. Please let me go home.” Jongdae frowns but pulls his head away from the skull. “Please.” It’s so quiet Yixing can barely hear it himself.

Jongdae’s frown lightens just a bit. “Come then, I’ll take you back.” He takes Yixing’s hand again and begins to lead him back out of the clearing and into the darkness. It seems darker than before, more hostile. Yixing wonders if it doesn’t want him to leave, if it’s angry with him. He wonders why that makes him sad. Jongdae stops once. He turns to Yixing with a strange smile and tilts his head to the side. “I wonder,” he says, “do you remember how to get home?”

Yixing pauses. He waits for the memory to come, but it doesn’t. He hasn’t been in this place for that long; he shouldn’t have forgotten how to go home so quickly. Jongdae’s smile grows wider as Yixing begins to panic. He tries to trace back the way they came. He remembers going into the clearing, remembers all the trees and the rabbit with antlers, but nothing else.

“I…” Yixing feels himself start to shake. He doesn’t remember how to get home. He squeezes his eyes shut and thinks so hard, harder than he’s ever thought in his life. Eventually, he remembers light and mushrooms. “The fairy ring,” Yixing sighs in relief, feeling his body relax, “I step into the fairy ring to go home.”

Jongdae hums, “Indeed you do.” Yixing doesn’t understand why Jongdae looks so displeased, but he doesn’t care either. He wants to go _home_. Jongdae leads him back to the fairy ring and lets go of his hand just as they reach the edge. “Visit me again, Zhang Yixing? You are lovely company and I have so much to show you.” When Yixing hesitates to answer, one foot in the fairy ring, Jongdae gives him a gentle, strangely sincere smile.

Jongdae is the only person Yixing has seen in this world. He may _be_ the only one. Yixing wonders if he’s lonely.

“The same promise as before,” Jongdae assures him, “You will be safe and free to return home whenever you wish.”

Yixing steps into the fairy ring before he can answer.

* * *

 

Baekhyun is there when the world rights itself. Yixing hears him before he sees him, quiet sobs reaching between the worlds. He turns in the fairy ring with Baekhyun’s name on his lips and stops. Baekhyun is right at the edge of the mushrooms, so close Yixing can see some of them bend under his weight. Baekhyun is crying, noises muffled by his knees. Yixing has never see him cry quite like this before.

Yixing steps out of the ring and crouches down beside him. “Baekhyun,” he whispers, “are you alright? What’s wrong?”

Baekhyun moves too fast for Yixing’s eyes to follow. Yixing hits the ground with a grunt and blinks up at Baekhyun in confusion. The back of his head throbs in time with his heartbeat from the impact. “Yixing! Yixing – oh my god! I thought I’d lost you!” Hands come down and cradle Yixing’s head, lips peppering kisses all across his forehead. “You’re right about the ring; you stepped in and just disappeared! I tried to follow you, but it wouldn’t let me in. I couldn’t even get a toe past the the edge of the ring.”

 _You believe_.

A light rises up from the grass. Yixing sees it just out of the corner of his eye. When he turns to look, to reach for it and hold it in his hand, it disappears. “What? What are you looking at? Are you listening to me, Xing?” Yixing nods and gently pushes Baekhyun off of him.

“Nothing, and yes, I’m listening to you.” His brain slowly catches up with the present and replays Baekhyun’s words. “I really disappeared?”

“Yes. You stepped into the ring and it was as though you had never even existed.” Yixing reaches up and wipes away the last of Baekhyun’s tears. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my life.” His heart twists with guilt. He’s the reason Baekhyun is so upset, why his best friend spent so long crying. Yixing knows time works differently in Jongdae’s world. A minute there could be an hour here, and he was there for so long tonight; it could be nearing sunrise by now and Baekhyun would’ve spent the whole night waiting for him to come back.

Yixing pushes himself to his feet, fingers dragging along the blades of grass. He swallows the disappointment rising in his chest when no other lights appear.

“I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t really think about what it might’ve looked like to you.” He hadn’t thought about Baekhyun at all. After he agreed to go with Jongdae, he stopped thinking about Baekhyun or going home. Yixing freezes in place and swallows around the lump in his throat; he’d almost forgotten how to return home.

“You’re forgiven, Yixing, just never do that again.”

Yixing laughs. “I don’t plan on scaring you again. I don’t think you’d want to come back to the fairy ring anyway.” He would like for Baekhyun to come with him one day, see the lights and the rabbit. The fairy ring should let him pass now that he believes it’s real.

“No,” Baekhyun says with a shake of his head. Yixing feels pinned under the somber seriousness of his stare, a little like a child being scolded. “Never step into the fairy ring again. Don’t go back to that world.”

“Why?”

“It’s dangerous! You know better than to go where the fae tread. The man who told you about my engagement, he’s one of the fae, isn’t he?”

Yixing imagines antlers draped in beautiful flowers. He imagines glowing eyes and a hum that threatened to overwhelm him. He nods. No human is quite like Jongdae. He’s a fae from a storybook, pretty and enchanting and always having just an edge of danger. Yixing wants to protest, but he holds his tongue. Jongdae promised to keep him safe; he isn’t like the fae that steal babies or eat men whole.

Baekhyun leads the way out of the forest. He holds Yixing’s hand tight like he’s afraid Yixing will disappear if he lets go. Yixing wonders if Jongdae worried about that too, if that’s why they held hands on that short venture through Jongdae’s world. He thinks Jongdae is a sweet, lonely creature.

Yixing doesn’t think he could bear to leave Jongdae to his lonesome again.

When they reach home, Baekhyun turns to Yixing with a frown. He looks so upset and Yixing looks to the ground to avoid that stare. “Promise me you won’t go back. Fae are tricky, they do whatever they can to lure you in and gain your trust before they turn on you. Even if the man seems safe, he’s not. Fae do not have pure intentions, Yixing.” Fingers tip Yixing’s chin up. Yixing clasps his hands together behind his back. “Promise me, please.”

 _Visit me again, Zhang Yixing_?

“I promise, Baekhyun.”

Baekhyun goes to bed that night with a smile on his face. Yixing whispers into the wind for Jongdae to keep Baekhyun’s engagement a secret, for Yixing’s sake if nothing else. Baekhyun goes to sleep with a smile, settled by the knowledge that Yixing won’t return to the forest. Yixing goes to sleep and finally uncrosses his fingers.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the support on last chapter! I'm so glad so many of you enjoy this fic and I hope you like this ending too! I really really loved writing this fic and making this little world and I'm so grateful you guys could come along for the ride! I'll be doing more fics for the [Moodboard Bingo](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/MoodBoardBingo) soon! I actually have another one up already called [The Strength to Know the Difference](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17017719) if you'd like to check it out. It's Krisho and I really liked writing it!
> 
> As always, a big thank you to [Aarushi](https://twitter.com/AarushiC_18) for being the best beta in the whole wide world! And also for coming up with the line "Byun Baekhyun and the Chamber of Secrets" based off a line in this chapter klasjdf

Jongdae is always waiting for him when his world disappears under the intensity, the wonder, of Jongdae’s world. Yixing steps into the fairy ring anticipating a smile to greet him on the other side. He is never disappointed – there has yet to be a time when Jongdae is not waiting for him. It was difficult at first to swallow down the guilt that rose up from his gut whenever he started his journey into the forest. Baekhyun doesn’t know Yixing broke his promise; he’s been much too wrapped up in his own life to notice Yixing slipping out of the village.

Yixing knows Baekhyun doesn’t mean to, but he keeps shutting Yixing out. He leaves Yixing alone in their home while he goes off and tries to spend what little time he has left in the village with other friends. Yixing wonders when he stopped being a friend that Baekhyun felt the need to spend those precious days with.

Yixing mentioned it once to Jongdae as the man took him on a trip to see the creatures of Jongdae’s world he thought Yixing would like. He told Jongdae that he felt as though Baekhyun didn’t care about him like he did the others. Jongdae had only hummed and coaxed a fox-like creature with glowing fur out from its den. The animal had wound itself around Yixing’s legs and purred when he scratched its chin. A few lights rose out of the grass and spun around his head, ducking in close to his ears and whispering to him. He can understand bits and pieces of what they say now; it’s nothing like how Jongdae understands them, but it’s something.

 _“We care about you, Zhang Yixing. Even if you feel unwanted in your world, know that we will_ always _want you. You’re special to us – to me_.” Yixing remembers looking up at Jongdae and being struck with the realization that the man was beautiful.

Yixing has known that Jongdae was beautiful from the moment they met, but it had only seemed to truly settle in at that moment. Jongdae had pulled Yixing to crouch down next to the fox and held him still as he giggled, the animal’s rough tongue rasping over his face like a cat. Jongdae had smiled and Yixing had smiled and remembered what it was like to feel wanted, to feel precious to someone else.

The fox appears to him in his own world now, as do the lights. It’s only at night, but Yixing has woken up and found a glowing white paw draped over his face. The lights have risen up from the field outside the village and coaxed him out of his cottage to spend the night listening to them chatter on and on about things he doesn’t understand.

Jongdae takes him to see the most amazing things. They never travel back to the skeleton of Jongdae’s mother, but Jongdae tells him that many of the creatures he takes Yixing to see are things that his mother showed him when he was young. The fox, a weasel that glides through the air like a snake on the ground, butterflies that shift through the rainbow as they fly – Jongdae shows him that and much more.

Jongdae says that the world has come to accept Yixing as one of its own. He still holds Yixing’s hand as they walk through the forest, but Yixing thinks it has more to do with what Jongdae wants than anything else. Yixing never pulls his hand away though. When they leave the clearing and slip between the trees, he reaches out for Jongdae just as much as Jongdae reaches out for him.

And on the days when Yixing doesn’t want to leave the clearing, when he feels worn thin and sad, Jongdae lies down in the grass next to him and lets Yixing decorate his antlers with flowers. Sometimes, Yixing lies down next to him and wiggles close until their arms touch and they watch the sky together.

Today, Jongdae leads Yixing out of the clearing in a different direction. “I have something very special to show you today,” he says. “Something I have wanted to show you for quite a while. I think you’ll like it.” Yixing doesn’t argue when Jongdae takes his hand and gently leads him around the fairy ring and into the forest in the opposite direction they normally go.

“What is it, Jongdae?” Jongdae only gives him an impish smile and winks. Yixing laughs and rolls his eyes, a strange kind of happiness fluttering in his stomach. “A surprise? Do you have a surprise for me?”

Jongdae’s smile grows into something more genuine, softer. Yixing feels heat bloom in his cheeks and he returns the smile in kind. “I would give you a million surprises if only to make you smile.” Long gone is the strange, mischievous creature from before. Jongdae is still plenty mischievous – it’s simply who he is. He is sweeter now though, more caring and gentle. He teases and plays his jokes as his kind do, but there’s never any malice. “But yes, Zhang Yixing, today I have a surprise for you. No hints and no guessing. Let yourself enjoy the surprise.”

Yixing huffs but squeezes Jongdae’s hand playfully. He’s never been one to enjoy surprises, but he’s willing to be patient for Jongdae. Jongdae has never surprised him before, and so he can be patient and wait for his surprise if it makes Jongdae happy.

Eventually, the trees part to reveal the surprise and Yixing stops walking with a gasp. He doesn’t know how he hadn’t heard it before. The forest is a very quiet place, and yet he heard nothing. The river is loud now, water flowing around the rocks jutting up from its surface and sloshing against the riverbanks. The river looks like what Yixing had always imagined the dried-up brook near the village would look like if it ever filled up again. Fish leap up from the water’s surface and come back down with a splash, their scales glittering a million colors in the light.

“It’s beautiful,” Yixing breathes and steps forward, gently pulling his hand from Jongdae’s, until he can kneel down and dip his fingers beneath the surface. A fish swims up and nips playfully at his fingers. Yixing smiles until his cheeks hurt and turns back to Jongdae. “Thank you for the surprise, I love it.”

The flowers Yixing wove so patiently around Jongdae’s antlers match the pretty pink blush on his cheeks. Yixing doesn’t think he’s ever seen Jongdae blush before; he loves it. “I’m happy you enjoy it, Zhang Yixing. Will you do me a favor in return?”

“What is it?”

“Dance for me? On the river rocks? They won’t let you fall and I think you would look absolutely lovely.”

Yixing stands and wraps his arms around himself. Age-old pain and bitterness wrapped around his ribs like cobwebs come to life and he turns away from Jongdae. He wants to hide this pain, hide it far away where no one can ever see it again. He doesn’t want Jongdae to see it at all. “You know I can’t, Jongdae. That’s an awful thing to ask of me.” The memory of a turn gone wrong makes a phantom pain erupt in his legs. He can’t dance, not anymore. Jongdae _knows_ that.

Jongdae crowds in close and pull his arms out from around himself, taking Yixing’s hands and holding them tight. Yixing wants to be upset with him. He wants to want to pull away and shut Jongdae out. It was an awful, horribly unfair thing for Jongdae to ask of him. Yixing would never ask for a favor like that.

But Yixing isn’t upset with Jongdae, not really. He feels more upset with himself for being too proud, for not taking better care of himself and letting himself get hurt. He can’t dance anymore, and he only has himself to blame. He can’t give Jongdae what he wants and that’s his fault.

“Will you try? I believe you can if you try.”

Yixing looks Jongdae in the eye and sees only sincerity. There’s pure, genuine belief that Yixing can dance and it makes Yixing’s chest swell and crush in on itself in turn. Still, he nods. Jongdae has given him so many wonderful things; he can try to give him this in return. “Will you catch me if I fall?”

“Undoubtedly.”

Yixing lets himself be led onto the first rock jutting out from the water. Jongdae takes a few steps back and settles himself on the ground to watch. Yixing takes a deep breath and tries to shake the nervousness crawling up his back, prickling under his skin. The first few steps are easy, the surface of the rock large enough for him to plant both feet down with space to spare. It’s a simple shifting of weight from one leg to the other, dragging one foot out in an arc and bringing it back in.

He can do simple steps all day, basic movements that can barely be considered dancing. Jongdae asked him to dance though, not shift his weight around, terrified of aggravating an old injury. So Yixing swallows down the fear and attempts a turn he knows he can’t do. Jongdae promised to catch him. Yixing keeps that in mind as he starts the turn and waits for the shooting pain, waits for his legs to give out underneath him.

Yixing finishes the turn perfectly instead. It takes a few moments to process, but then he has to crouch down to keep his balance as he starts to cry. He hasn’t been able to turn like that in years. The tears come unbidden and there’s nothing he can do to stop the hiccupping sobs.

Jongdae just claps from the river bank. “Perfect, Zhang Yixing. I knew you could do it.” Yixing pulls his face away from his knees to give Jongdae a watery smile. Jongdae is proud, smiling so wide and applauding with the energy of ten people. Yixing laughs and wipes at his tears even though they keep falling. Jongdae believes in him in a way no one else has, and Yixing doesn’t know what to make of it. All Yixing knows is that he wants to make Jongdae even more proud of him; he wants to be at the center of Jongdae’s happiness and always be the reason he smiles so beautifully.

When the tears finally stop and Yixing straightens back up, Jongdae is still smiling. Yixing gives a bow. “Encore,” Jongdae calls, “Would you be so kind as to give me an encore?”

Yixing giggles and nods. “I don’t have any music though!” Music floats through the air as if he had summoned it. Yixing listens to the first few beats and blinks. He knows this song. He knows it as well as he knows his own heartbeat. “You know my favorite song, Jongdae?” Jongdae nods, a few flowers coming loose and dangling down by his face. Yixing isn’t surprised. Jongdae knows everything.

The music is easy for him to follow. He hops from rock to rock and moves his body to the rhythm, spinning, leaping, _dancing_. He keeps his eyes closed, too lost in the song to take in anything else. The rocks seem drawn to his feet, or his feet to the rocks. Either way, he never so much as slips as he dances, and when the song ends he’s back on the rock closest to the shore. Jongdae is there when he opens his eyes, applauding once more. Yixing bows and his face feels as though it’s caught on fire and his heart skips a beat at the joy clear on Jongdae’s face.

Jongdae helps him back onto the riverbank, “This world doesn’t believe in things like physical limitations, you know. Why should such talent and determination be lost because of a simple mistake?” Yixing lets himself fall against Jongdae’s chest in a hug, giggling wildly. Jongdae’s arm close around him. If Yixing listens, he can hear the uptick in Jongdae’s heart.

“I like it here,” he whispers.

“I’m glad. There is always a place for you here, Zhang Yixing.” _A place here with me_.

As with every visit, Jongdae makes a gentle comment about Yixing’s home and Yixing realizes he’s been gone for quite a long time. Now, he almost doesn’t want to go home. Not yet, at least. He knows he shouldn’t, but he wants to stay with Jongdae for just a little while longer. Even as they walk back to the clearing, Yixing holds Jongdae’s hand in both of his and promises himself that he’ll stay longer next time. A rabbit with antlers hops across their path and stares at Yixing with curious eyes. Yixing smiles back and wonders if there will ever be a time when the bunny lets him pet it. The bunny chitters and then hops away. “Maybe next time,” Jongdae murmurs. “It won’t be long until it comes up to you.”

Yixing is hesitant when Jongdae walks him back to the fairy ring. “Jongdae.” The man squeezes Yixing’s hands one last time before starting to pull away. Yixing’s heart thuds a drumbeat in his chest, a frantic excitement bubbling up within him. He grabs Jongdae’s hands and pulls him close.

Jongdae raises an eyebrow in question. Yixing closes his eyes and leans in, pressing his lips to Jongdae’s for just a moment. When he pulls back, Jongdae is smiling gently and grabbing the back of Yixing’s neck to pull him in for another kiss. Yixing’s only kissed a few other people in his life, but he thinks Jongdae is the best by far.

Jongdae pulls him in for one last kiss, eyes dark and heavy. It makes Yixing’s stomach drop in the best way. “You are a truly lovely creature, Yixing.” Yixing grins, attempting to hide his face in his hands even as Jongdae tugs him close for another hug. “Will you visit me again tomorrow?”

“Yes,” Yixing says, chest filling up with fluttery joy that threatens to make his heart leap up and out of his throat. “Will you be waiting for me?”

Jongdae pulls down a flower from his antlers and tucks it behind Yixing’s ear with a smile. “Yes, of course. Where else would I be if not with you?” Yixing wonders the same thing about himself.

* * *

 

“Baekhyun is leaving soon,” Yixing says as he steps into the fairy ring, tears already dripping down his cheeks. “By the end of the week.” Yixing doesn’t even wait for the world to finish shifting before stepping out of the fairy ring with arms outstretched.

Jongdae catches him regardless. Jongdae always catches him, is always there when Yixing needs him. Yixing thinks he sends the lights or the fox creature in the moments that he needs him but can’t get to the forest. That’s something Jongdae would do. Jongdae is almost unfailingly kind to him, letting him cry for hours on end as time marches on and brings Baekhyun’s inevitable departure that much closer.

Yixing hadn’t realized that that departure was going to come so soon. It was always a very vague point in time. When all the parties involved agree, when the marriage contract is finished, when Baekhyun is ready – it had all been some far-off moment that Yixing could avoid.

Now that moment is here, and Yixing doesn’t know what to do.

“I know, Yixing. I am sorry for your loss.” Yixing hiccups out a sob and lets Jongdae drag them both down to the grass. He lands in Jongdae’s lap and wraps his arms around Jongdae’s neck, crying helplessly. Jongdae holds him close and presses gentle kisses to his temple. “So sorry.”

“It’s not f-fair. Why does the prince get to take him?”

Jongdae laughs, a quiet, pitying sound, “Nothing is fair, my love. The prince does as he wishes because he is the prince, and the rest of the kingdom has to live with it.” Fingers card through Yixing’s hair and brush away the tears that continue to fall, comforting him. “Dry your eyes, Yixing. It won’t do you or Baekhyun any good to get upset over something you can’t control. Come, let’s find something to cheer you up – distract you as you cope.”

Yixing shakes his head. He wants to cry until the knot of sadness in his chest loosens and falls away. He wants to be miserable for a just a little longer, but Jongdae is grabbing him by the waist and pushing him back to his feet.

Almost at once, lights rise up from the grass and settle on Yixing’s shoulders, circling around his arms and brushing against his cheeks. One hovers just next to his ear and whispers. The voice is soft and warm like a blanket, airy and tumbling over itself. “I’ll be okay,” Yixing murmurs, “don’t worry yourselves about me.” The lights all titter at once as though they’re upset with him. Yixing sniffles but can’t help the small smile pulling at his lips.

“You understand them now?”

Yixing looks up to Jongdae and shrugs. “A little. Not perfect, but I get the message.” Jongdae’s head tilts to the side and the black flowers sway with the movement. Yixing wonders where the black flowers came from. They were red when he visited yesterday. Perhaps they changed colors on their own; Jongdae promised that only Yixing would have the privilege of decorating his antlers, that he would leave them be until Yixing returned.

Jongdae smiles and holds out a hand for Yixing, lips curling playfully. Yixing’s heart aches and the sadness is still weighing down so heavily upon his shoulders it feels as though he can barely move, but it’s hard for him to deny that smile. So, he takes Jongdae’s hand and manages a few steps.

“I don’t think I want to go see anything in particular,” Yixing says. Jongdae’s smile widens as it always does when he knows he’s going to get his way. Yixing sees that smile more often than he would like to admit. “I’ll walk with you though.”

“That’s all I ask. For you to walk with me and allow me to lift your spirits, that’s all I ask.”

The lights leave Yixing when Jongdae asks. Each one lets out a whine like a child but descends back into the grass all the same. Yixing laughs through the tears and watches the lights go. One drops back into the grass next to a mushroom glowing white in the darkness. Yixing pauses, stares at it for a few long moments, and tries to remember why he feels like it’s important to him.

Jongdae leads him out of the clearing with a curious look in his eyes. They wait at the tree line for what feels like hours, Jongdae’s gaze darting back over Yixing’s shoulder, before Jongdae relaxes with a smile. “Come,” Jongdae leans in and presses a kiss to Yixing’s cheek, laughing when Yixing turns his head to chase after his mouth. “Walk with me, Yixing. Let me keep you company.” Yixing does, sadness lifting with each step he takes into the forest.

They walk for what could be hours. Yixing’s never quite understood how time works here, and Jongdae said that it didn’t matter – the world would adapt to Yixing, because a person’s internal clock is much more concrete than any arbitrary labels placed upon time.

Still, they walk and chase, playing a game neither of them know who started. Yixing will break free from Jongdae and dart between the trees, giggling as creatures watch him from above and below. Jongdae always, _always_ catches him before he runs too far. He presses Yixing into a tree, “Not quite fast enough, Yixing.” Yixing smiles and falls into the pattern, easy as breathing.

“And what will your prize be for catching me?”

Jongdae’s smile morphs into a smirk and he leans in close. Their noses brush and Yixing feels his cheeks heat. He already knows what Jongdae will ask, it’s the same prize every single time. “A kiss.” And every single time, Yixing kisses him. It’s just meant to be a peck, nothing more than a second of contact, but Jongdae chases after his mouth. “That’s hardly a kiss.” Yixing laughs; he laughs even as Jongdae is tilting their heads for better access and darting in to kiss him breathless. They kiss until Yixing breaks for air, and even then Jongdae continues trailing kisses down his jaw and neck. When Yixing pulls his face back up for another kiss, he’s struck by how natural it feels to be here.

He’s pressed against a tree by a man with antlers like a deer in a world so unlike his own, and yet he has never been more comfortable in his own skin.

Yixing keeps his hands cupped around Jongdae’s face and smiles. Jongdae makes a soft noise in question and Yixing shrugs. “I’m just happy. I’m always happy when I’m here – with you.” It feels as though he’s swallowed the sun, warmed from the inside out and so happy he could nearly burst. “Just happy,” he whispers, “that’s all. I never want to leave you.”

Hands pet at his waist as Jongdae leans in for one, two, three more kisses. He pulls away and Yixing watches in awe as one of the most beautiful smiles he’s ever seen spreads across Jongdae’s face. If Yixing swallowed the sun, then another one must have grown for Jongdae to take because no smile has ever shone quite as beautifully as Jongdae’s.

“You never have to.”

The words hang in the air between them for a long while before Jongdae pulls away, pulling a flower from his antlers and tucking it behind Yixing’s ear. The flower is the same bright, burning red as it was when Yixing first found it in the field near the river. Yixing reaches up to touch it and smiles as his fingers brush over the back of Jongdae’s hand. Jongdae takes his hand and twines their fingers together.

“Does the red look nice?”

Jongdae smiles, “It looks lovely.”

The world moves on without them. Creatures fly above their heads, scuttle around near their feet, paying no attention to them. Yixing likes that. They’re a part of this world, not strange or new. Jongdae has always been a part of this world, but Yixing feels like he belongs here. He’s been accepted as one of their own and he belongs here – in this world, in this moment, he belongs here with Jongdae. Yixing relaxes against the tree and breathes out a contented sigh. There’s nowhere he’d rather be than right here. He doesn’t know where he could go regardless.

Something rustles in the bushes, loud enough to startle Yixing from his thoughts. The moment fades but Jongdae is still here. Yixing traces Jongdae’s lips with his finger, pulling away with a yelp when Jongdae pretends to snap at him. Then Jongdae laughs and chases after Yixing’s hands to kiss his fingertips. “Do you really think I would bite you, Yixing? Without you asking for it?”

Yixing’s cheeks burn and he makes a noise almost like a squeak of embarrassment, which only makes him that much more embarrassed. Jongdae laughs harder, tugging Yixing close when he makes a playful attempt to push him away. Jongdae is always here. When Yixing needs him, when Yixing simply wants his company, Jongdae is always right there.

Eventually, they move away from the tree and continue on their way. Jongdae makes a comment that autumn is finally coming to the world as leaves crunch under their feet. Yixing blinks. In between the green, he can see hints of the autumn he grew up with, the orange, yellow, and brown peeking out from branches full of life. He didn’t think that this world ever changed, that it was always this same lush green. Jongdae catches a leaf that glows orange and yellow like a sunset Yixing has only read about in books. “The seasons don’t like to change,” he says. “But when change comes to the world, the world changes as well. It’s the forest’s way of adapting.”

Yixing hums and takes the leaf when it’s offered. “What’s the change?” Jongdae looks him up and down with a raised eyebrow and grabs another leaf from a tree branch, green this time, to place on top of Yixing’s head. He shakes it off with a frown, guilt beginning to build in the pit of his stomach. “I-I didn’t mean to change your world, Jongdae. I’m sorr-”

“None of that. I am happy you’re here. The forest is happy to have you as well. If it wasn’t, it would not have allowed you to return as you do. Just accept autumn as your welcoming party.”

A rabbit with antlers hops into their path and blinks up at them, eyes fixing on Yixing as it chitters. “And consider this to be the first guest.” The rabbit hops closer and closer and Yixing freezes in place. “Are you afraid of it, Yixing?”

Yixing shakes his head. He hasn’t been afraid of anything this world has to offer in a long, long time. His heart pounds in his chest all the same. He is afraid, but not of the rabbit itself. Yixing watches as Jongdae crouches down and follows suit, nervous excitement making his chest feel tight. The rabbit comes closer, and closer, and closer, before it rears up on its hind legs and rests its front paws on Yixing’s knee. Yixing gasps.

He puts his hands out so carefully, so strained, that he can see it shake. The rabbit doesn’t even flinch, blinking as though its bored; he’s annoying it by taking so long to give it the affection it seeks. The fur on the rabbit’s ears is the softest thing Yixing’s ever felt. He tries to hold back the lovesick noise bubbling up in his throat and fails.

Jongdae laughs and Yixing whines, swatting at him with his other hand. “Let me be,” he says, “it’s never let me pet it before. None of them have.”

“Yes, that makes sense. They don't like to get too attached unless they're sure you won't abandon them. They're very needy things. I wondered when they would finally give in and let you love them though.” Yixing looks to Jongdae. He isn’t quite sure what to make of what Jongdae is saying, but it sounds right. Yixing would never abandon them, not the rabbits, not Jongdae either. The rabbit lets Yixing pet it for a few moments more before hopping away, back into the darkness.

Yixing smiles. He smiles wider when Jongdae returns it. Then Jongdae looks back out into the forest and hums. His fingers drum a pretty pattern on the back of Yixing’s hand when Jongdae weaves their fingers together once more and pulls him to his feet. “Would you like to see my mother again? I think she’d like to meet you again, properly this time.”

Yixing pauses and watches the shadows of the trees. He looks for the same darkness he saw when first stepped into the fairy ring so long ago. He looks for the darkness that scared him back when Jongdae first took him to meet his mother.

He doesn’t find it. The world is dark, yes, but it isn’t _dark_ to Yixing.

He nods even as he gnaws on his own lip in nervousness. The deer skeleton is still fresh in his mind. He hasn’t been able to forget it, not for a single second. He hasn’t been able to forget Jongdae’s eyes either; Yixing has seen the glow in his dreams. Jongdae thumbs at his lip, pulling it out from between Yixing’s teeth. “If you don’t want to go, I won’t make you. I won’t make you do anything that will make you unhappy.”

It’s enough to make the fear fade away. Yixing relaxes and shakes his head. “I want to make you happy too.” Jongdae smiles, squeezing Yixing’s hand in his own and pulling him back the way they came.

They walk on and on and exhaustion begins to pull at Yixing’s body. His feet slow, his eyelids droop, and he leans against Jongdae with a yawn. It’s strange. Yixing doesn’t remember ever feeling tired in this world before. He is well-versed in the exhaustion that hits him _after_ , but never while he’s here.

“Jongdae,” he asks, “do you have a house?” He imagines a bed, somewhere he can lay his head and rest for just a few hours. He imagines waking up to Jongdae every morning, decorating his antlers to match the season. He wonders if Jongdae sleeps.

“No, but I could make one if you’d like.”

“For me?” Yixing’s face colors. “That’s quite a lot of work just for me.”

Jongdae laughs and nudges their shoulders together. “For you? No amount of work is too much. And you’ll need somewhere to sleep, won’t you? We’ll have to find somewhere without the lights to build it though. They would keep you awake, talking your ear off. You’re their favorite, you know? Whenever you’re gone, the only time they’ll talk to me is to ask when you’re coming back. I’m a bit jealous.”

Yixing shakes his head, giggling as he rests his head on Jongdae’s shoulder. “You don’t have to be jealous. I’m sure they love you too. I’m still new to them though – it’s like with children, they drop their favorite toys for a little while when something new arrives, but they always go back to their favorites in the end.”

“Oh, I’m not jealous of you. I’m jealous of the lights because they take up all your attention when _I_ could be having it.” Yixing turns his face against Jongdae’s shoulder to hide the warmth in his cheeks. He murmurs something in response about Jongdae always taking up his attention and tries to fight down the fluttery, bubbling feelings in his chest. “The only solution is for you to spend more time with me. It’s only once my need for your attention is satisfied that I’ll stop being jealous. But I have to warn you, Yixing, I will _never_ stop wanting your attention.”

From anyone else, Yixing would say it was cheesy, corny enough to make him wince in secondhand embarrassment. Hearing it from Jongdae though, hearing Jongdae say those sorts of things about _him_ , makes him want to jump around and giggle like a child.

“I-I guess I can’t leave you at all then, huh?”

The air turns tense, forest quieting as though it’s holding its breath. Yixing looks up from Jongdae’s shoulder and blinks at the rapidly darkening sky. Yixing doesn’t remember the sky here ever looking like that before.

“No,” Jongdae whispers, “you can’t. You should stay with me forever.”

Yixing knows there’s something not quite right with that. He thinks that there is somewhere he needs to be, some reason that he can’t stay with Jongdae forever, but he can’t remember it. He thinks about what could possibly need him, where he could possibly go that wouldn’t take Jongdae as well. Yixing can’t think of anything. Jongdae’s world – _their_ world – would never deny Jongdae anything. So Yixing pushes down the quiet whispering in the back of his mind that tells him to think harder and nods. The forest comes back to life and the sky lightens. Jongdae smiles and it’s the most beautiful sun Yixing has ever seen.

They’re nearly to Jongdae’s mother when Yixing sees it. He hadn’t even been looking, too lost in Jongdae’s speech about where they should build their house and what it should look like to notice the world around him. He’s in the middle of asking Jongdae if he thinks a fireplace would be safe in a forest when he sees it out of the corner of his eye.

A circle – a _ring_ of glowing white mushrooms in a clearing. They’re so pretty. Yixing slows to a stop and stumbles when Jongdae continues walking. He doesn’t care. The mushrooms are so pretty. He doesn’t understand why he thinks they are so pretty.

“Yixing?”

Yixing grunts in response and stares at the ring. He wonders why he calls it a ring instead of a circle. He wonders why it feels so important. Mushrooms aren’t important. He doesn’t think they are, at least. Jongdae would’ve mentioned if the mushrooms were important. Yixing turns to Jongdae to ask and then stops, turning back to the mushrooms in silence. Jongdae and the mushrooms, he remembers Jongdae and the mushrooms. He remembers the world changing, shifting from what he once knew to the forest around him. He remembers standing in the ring of mushrooms and looking up to see Jongdae emerge from the shadows.

_Zhang Yixing, you've been here for quite some time. You might want to return home before you forget how to._

“How long,” he whispers. He looks to Jongdae and the man is staring back, jaw tense. The flowers weaved among his antlers wither and die. “How long have you been trying to trap me here?”

Jongdae takes a deep breath even as he frowns and the world begins to darken around them. “Yixing, I neve-”

“Yo-you’ve been waiting for me to forget how to go home, don’t lie to me!” Yixing yanks his hand out of Jongdae’s and steps away. He blinks back hot tears as he remembers every single time Jongdae would mention home offhandedly, how the man would seem upset when Yixing remembered he needed to go home. “You were waiting for me to forget so you could trap me here! So that I wouldn’t leave! You _promised_ , Jongdae! You promised you would never stop me from going home!” Jongdae reaches out for him, making soft sounds like he’s soothing a wild animal. Yixing flinches away, turning on his heel and sprinting for the fairy ring. He needs to go home; he needs to go back to his world and destroy the fairy ring so it never tricks him again.

“Yixing, love, listen to me,” Jongdae keeps pace so easily, arms open as though he’s waiting for Yixing to give in and take the comfort offered. “I never broke my promise. I have always reminded of you home, correct? _I_ was the one reminding _you_ of the other world. Think about it, I could have destroyed the fairy ring whenever I wanted, but I didn’t. I didn’t because I wanted _you_ to decide this is where you belong. I would never go back on my word, not with you, Yixing.”

Yixing shakes his head but stops before he enters the ring. He turns his back to Jongdae and wipes at his tears, heart shattering even as it tries to latch onto Jongdae’s words as truth. “You were making me forget.”

“The _forest_ was making you forget. Haven’t you noticed that it’s been harder and harder to remember the way back home? Come here, let me-”

Jongdae’s hands come into sight as they wrap around him from behind to pull him close. Yixing pulls away with a sob and stumbles closer to the fairy ring. “Get away from me! You’re a liar!” The forest turns urgent, ground pulsing under his feet. The forest, Jongdae, they’re one and the same. Neither of them want him to leave, both of them are willing to trap him here without asking if it’s what he really wants. He wants to hate them both, but his heart is too busy crumbling to dust to muster up the energy to hate.

“All I ever wanted was to take care of you,” Jongdae whispers. “And I have, haven’t I? Since you first arrived here, I have been doing everything in my power to make you feel cared for, wanted, special, _loved_. Tell me, Zhang Yixing, is that so wrong? To love you and want you to stay by my side, is that wrong? I have never hurt you, always kept you safe, always _loved_ you.”

Yixing only shakes his head, sobbing so hard he can barely breathe. He wanted Jongdae to hold him like before, let him cry until he’s worn out and shower him with affection. Now, He doesn’t want Jongdae anywhere near him.

He looks back when he hears the sound of rustling grass. Jongdae has stepped back, arms out and palms up in supplication. He looks so sad. The world looks sad, dimming around the edges in a way it never has before. "Baekhyun is leaving you soon, isn't he? Who will ever care for you as he and I do? Hm? Who is going to care about _Zhang Yixing_ back in your village? Here, you are important, you are special, you are _loved_. Can you say the same for your world?”

Still, Yixing stumbles to the fairy ring and hiccups, watching Jongdae through watery eyes. The man is heartbroken and Yixing feels that same pain in his own chest. One foot steps into the ring and Yixing’s head spins with a thousand thoughts at once.

Jongdae has been working to trick him into staying. Jongdae loves him. Jongdae let the forest pull Yixing’s memories of how to get home away. No one has ever cared for him like Jongdae does.

"I have done all I can to make you happy, to earn your trust and your affection. I love you so dearly, Zhang Yixing. Won't you stay with me?" Yixing steps backwards into the fairy ring without answering.

* * *

 

Yixing watches Baekhyun step into the carriage meant to take him away to palace with a forced smile. The guards from the palace barely spare him a glance. They, like everyone else in the village, are focused solely on Baekhyun. Baekhyun, who is Yixing’s best friend, who was his best friend even before the word spread throughout the kingdom of his new status. Baekhyun, who is leaving Yixing behind.

Yixing wonders when he became so selfish. Baekhyun is the one entering a world he knows nothing about, a world full of snakes. Not even the world Yixing is hiding from has snakes like the ones slithering through the palace halls, venomous lies dripping from their lips. Baekhyun is the one leaving all he knows behind, and yet Yixing thinks only of himself.

Baekhyun looks back once more and bites his bottom lip. Yixing attempts a wave, attempts to make his smile a little less forced. Then Baekhyun is bowing to a palace guard and leaping off the carriage step to nearly tackle Yixing in a hug. Yixing muffles a sniffle in Baekhyun’s shoulder and holds him as tightly as he possibly can. Baekhyun whispers, “There’s talk of a surrogate to give the prince heirs, though they’ll still be considered mine. And you are the only tutor I’ll let near any of my children.”

Yixing squeezes Baekhyun, heart twisting in his chest. “I’ll have to read more, won’t I? I think the future princes and princesses will need to know more than fairy tales.”

“I think that is all my children will ever need to know.” Baekhyun laughs. Yixing commits the sound to memory. It will likely be the last time he’ll ever hear it. For all Baekhyun’s talk, they both know that there is very little chance the palace will let someone like Yixing inside its walls.

A palace guard calls for Baekhyun and gestures to the carriage. The guards stare at Yixing like a threat now. Perhaps he is, seeing as he is the last person Baekhyun said goodbye to. He is the prince consort’s best friend.

Yixing smiles and it feels more genuine than any smile has the past few days. He is Baekhyun’s best friend. The pain of being left behind, left alone, still stings, but there’s a sweetness to it. Baekhyun wouldn’t leave him if he didn’t have to. Yixing holds that knowledge close to his chest. For all that the palace can order Baekhyun to be a good husband to the prince, Yixing will always have the knowledge that Baekhyun loves _him_.

Yixing watches Baekhyun’s carriage disappear into the forest with the guards escorting him the entire way. Everyone in the village says a prayer that they will receive news about his safe passage to the palace. Yixing doesn’t. He knows prayers don’t matter; God has no reign in that forest.

Instead, Yixing waits for night to fall and lies in the field near the forest. No lights greet him, no creatures have appeared to him since he stepped back through the fairy ring. He asks the night air to guide Baekhyun home. Silently, mouth shut to keep the question tucked deep down inside, Yixing asks for someone to guide him home as well – he isn’t quite sure where his home is now. “I know you must be upset with me,” Yixing twists his fingers in the grass and stares up at stars that look so, so different from the ones he’d gotten used to. “But don’t take it out on Baekhyun. Please, just let him be.”

No reply ever comes, not that he’d expected one, and Yixing eventually rolls back to his feet and starts the long walk back to the empty cottage he struggles to call his own now.

The village begins to shut him out. No one refuses him service or outright ignores him when he speaks, but no one speaks to him first. Yixing walks through the market and no one calls out to him like they used to. He knows they only called out to him because he walked with Baekhyun but being forced to face it hurts.

Yixing attempts to interact at first. He talks to some of the people Baekhyun called friends. They were people Yixing would occasionally call friends as well, people who Baekhyun told Yixing to go to when the loneliness started to eat him whole.

Seokjin is the only one who gives any effort. They hold one conversation, but it falters under the weight of the disapproval of the other men. The distaste is palpable. No one wants Yixing near and it is so transparent. Yixing forces a congenial smile and pretends that he suddenly remembers he forgot to finish some task back home. He never tries to start up a conversation again.

He speaks only when absolutely necessary. His days are spent in silence, in staring at the tree line and trying to force his eyes to see lights rising up out of the grass at night. The lights never come, neither does the fox creature nor the rabbit.

Yixing is utterly alone.

Sleep stops coming quite so easily. His waking hours are spent inside his head, lying in grass and running between the trees. He thinks of when he ran and reveled in the knowledge he would be caught. Captivity seemed so appealing then; a part of him he doesn’t like to think about says it’s still appealing now. Yixing spends his nights curled into a ball on his bed and missing – he refuses to let himself think of what he’s missing.

And then one night a rabbit with antlers like a deer appears at the foot of his bed. Yixing shoots up, ripping free of those first few minutes of sleep, the first few he’s had in days. He wonders if it’s a dream, but he rubs his eyes, pinches his cheek and winces at the pain, and the rabbit is still there. Yixing crawls close with his heart in his throat and lies down on his belly. The tear tracks on his face stick to the fabric of his blankets but he doesn’t care.

The rabbit blinks at him. All Yixing can think of is Jongdae. Jongdae promised to never leave him alone. Yixing would never feel lonely if Jongdae had his way.

Yixing reaches out a timid, trembling hand towards the rabbit. Moonlight bathes them both in silver and for a moment Yixing thinks he sees tiny red flowers wrapped around the rabbit’s antlers. A cloud passes in front of the moon and blankets them both in darkness. The flowers are gone when the moonlight returns, but Yixing’s heart twists all the same. “Do you feel like I abandoned you,” he whispers.

The rabbit hops out of reach just as Yixing is about to press his fingers against its fur. Yixing blinks back stinging tears and bites his bottom lip to distract himself from the awful, knotted up pain in his chest. The rabbit watches him as he drops his hand to the blankets, palm up. Loneliness eats him up from the inside out.

“I’m sorry. I miss you so much.” He isn’t sure who he’s talking to, but the words falling from his lips take some of the pain with them.

Yixing and the rabbit sit in silence, watching each other. Yixing feels lonelier than he has since Baekhyun left. If he’s truly honest with himself, he’s been lonely since he walked away from the fairy ring, but Baekhyun’s presence helped soothe the ache. Now, with only the rabbit to hear him, Yixing can admit how badly he misses Jongdae, how hard it has been to try and adjust to life without him.

“Do you – is there another fairy ring next to the palace? Near Baekhyun?”

The rabbit hops close and drops its head into Yixing’s palm. Yixing’s heart beats so hard in his chest. The rabbit nuzzles his hand for only a second, eyes closed and making some soft noise in contentment. Then it hops away, back into the shadows. Yixing watches it go and nearly calls for it to come back. It’s gone before he has the chance, but he doesn’t feel quite so lonely.

Yixing pushes himself to sit up again. He crawls back towards the pillows and freezes in place. It seems so innocent, like perhaps it has always been there he’s never noticed it before. He remembers it looking like this, lying on the right side of his pillow with a corner of his blanket pulled up to cover it. The memories are hazy and warped, memories seen through the eyes of a child, but he still remembers it so clearly.

The stuffed sheep toy is soft in his hands, cloth gentle because his skin was so sensitive as a child. One button eye is hanging loose just as it did when he was small. It’s cleaner than he remembers, in better shape than he would’ve thought after so many years.

Yixing settles it back under the blanket with a smile on his face. He keeps one hand curled tight around a stuffed leg to make it sure it won’t leave him again. “Thank you,” he whispers to the moon, to the shadows of the clouds that bend and warp into something that looks like home. Yixing ends up pulling the sheep to his chest to sleep, pressing the soft cloth to his face. He falls asleep and can almost forget what loneliness tastes like.

Yixing dreams of staring out at a palace from a hilltop, colors of his kingdom waving from banners. He looks down and sees a ring of pretty white mushrooms at his feet. He dreams of rabbit tracks and glowing tails, of dancing lights floating around his face and whispering endlessly. He dreams of water gurgling, rushing around rocks. Shadows watch him, but they are careful, protective, guiding him along a path he doesn’t remember walking. The shadows of antlers fall down over him, and he smiles. He dreams of a hand holding his own and soft laughter, of a little cottage tucked away in the rib cage of a giant deer.

_Won’t you stay with me?_

_Is there another fairy ring next to the palace?_

Yixing wakes to a soft _yes_ ringing in his ears. He blinks at the ceiling of the cottage and the early morning light streaming in through the window. The dream plays out in the back of his mind over and over again, lights, sounds, feelings that all blend together. He shivers violently, curling into a ball at the sudden cold. Yixing shivers again and whimpers. He realizes that there is no one who cares about him enough to check in on him, to cover him with an extra blanket. There is no one in _this_ world, at least.

* * *

 

A boy disappears into the forest late at night, a pack on his back full of things he decided were important enough to bring after a day of deliberation. He doesn’t have much, just a few changes of clothes and his favorite books. In his arms is a small stuffed sheep. He pauses at the edge of the forest. Lights rise up out of the grass at his feet; he smiles and takes a deep breath before stepping through the tree line. Branches guard him from view, casting shadows like antlers in the moonlight.

Somewhere on the other side of a tunnel between the worlds, a man who is not quite a man feels the boy draw closer. He waits for the boy on the other side of the tunnel with open arms. The tunnel opens up one last time and the man smiles as the boy runs to him. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have left. I missed you so much.”

“I think I might have missed you more.”

The boy leans up for a kiss; the man hums. The last pieces of his plan fall in line. The man has always been a collector of lovely things, and Zhang Yixing is the loveliest thing of all.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so so so much for reading! If you liked it, please leave a comment and a kudos! If you want to learn more about when the second chapter is coming out or any of the fics I'm going to post in the future, feel free to come talk to me! I'm killmeDO on [Tumblr,](http://killmedo.tumblr.com/) [Twitter,](https://twitter.com/killmeDO?lang=en) and [Curious Cat!](https://curiouscat.me/killmeDO)


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